Just For Fun

In the admittedly sophomoric fashion of headline creation, today we do not cheer: "On, Wisconsin!", but rather approach the state from the point of dealing with a tricky subject to address, in the style of: "On The Subject Of...". The reasons are pretty obvious (not to... ahem... badger the point), since the primary election they're holding today simply should not have been held right now, seeing as how we're all still in the depths of a medical crisis which demands as stringent social distancing as possible. But Republicans have successfully demanded that people risk death to cast a ballot, so (sadly) here we are.

As always in these election-prediction columns though, we've got to first review the scoring from the last round. This took place quite a while ago -- St. Patrick's Day, as a matter of fact -- because every other state which was scheduled to hold a primary since then has prudently postponed it. Only Wisconsin has, rather insanely, demanded its citizens turn out in large numbers to mingle with each other and swap germs in person.

The last three states to vote were Arizona, Florida, and Illinois. We called them all for Joe Biden, and he swept all three. No real surprise there. But we also have one more result to announce, because the Democrats Abroad numbers were also finally reported. We called this race back on Super Tuesday, by predicting Bernie would chalk up a win. This too has now proven to have been right, which bolsters our cumulative numbers a bit. After going 4-for-4 in all of these races, my final tally now stands at:

Total correct 2020 primary picks so far: 31 for 44 -- 70%.

That's an improvement, and I feel pretty confident in saying my numbers will only continue to improve for as long as Bernie Sanders decides to stay in the race. More on that subject in a moment.

We were supposed to get yet another Democratic debate this month, but at the moment it is questionable whether this will even take place or not. Bernie still wants to debate (for obvious reasons), but Joe Biden hasn't fully committed yet (also for obvious reasons). Even if it does take place, one has to wonder whether the two remaining candidates will even be in the same room as the moderator, or whether they'll all do it from their respective basements. The previous debate was reportedly the first one since Nixon-Kennedy not to have a live audience, so it wouldn't surprise me to see the candidates get even more remote for the next one. If it actually happens, that is. Also, as of this writing, the Democratic National Convention has been postponed until August, and may not even happen at all (it may be a "virtual convention" instead).

Biden has moved on to vetting his short lists for both the vice presidential slot as well as for cabinet positions, which might seem premature but really isn't. To his credit, he did call up Bernie before he announced this move, to essentially apologize for being so presumptuous. From all accounts, this call went well, and to me it was a good indication of the essential decency of Joe Biden (he didn't have to call up Bernie to let him know, but he did so anyway because he thought it was the right thing to do). Can anyone imagine Donald Trump making a similar call? That right there is the fundamental difference between the two men's character, in a nutshell.

Wisconsin

This column really could have fit into a single tweet: "Joe Biden will win the Wisconsin primary." That's really all that needs be said on the subject of prognostication.

Rumors have been circulating for weeks now that Bernie Sanders is contemplating dropping out of the race, although these may merely be wishful thinking on the part of the media. The latest story was that Bernie's advisors are split on the question, with some urging him to get out and clear the field for Biden while others are urging him to fight on to the very end. The latest rumor I've heard is that if Bernie loses Wisconsin by 15 points or more, he'll drop out. We'll have to see if this plays out or not, but again these are only rumors, so make of them what you will.

Bernie really should suspend his campaign, because there is really only one path to victory for him at this point, and it's an awfully grim one: Joe Biden gets the coronavirus and dies. Sorry to be so crass (and to break my cardinal rule of never speculating about the death of a candidate or politician), but that's really the only way Bernie is going to emerge as the nominee, at this point. But realistically, even if this sad event did come to pass, Bernie would be just as well positioned to finish the race if he suspends his campaign, because he can always "un-suspend" it later on. This is precisely why candidates never actually "end" their campaigns, they merely "suspend" them. But then I've been calling on Bernie to exit the race for quite a while now, and he doesn't seem to be listening to my advice so far.

I write today not worrying about the usual deadline of publishing this article before the polls close, since it isn't going to matter. Wisconsin will not be announcing any results tonight, as things currently stand. We'll have to wait a week to find out who won, because that's where the courts have left the gigantic fubar that Wisconsin's 2020 primary has become. I wrote yesterday about how Democrats should be using the Republicans' efforts to halt any moves to universal vote-by-mail elections, because right now they are forcing people to risk death to cast their ballot -- which is (obviously) ripe for use as a political bludgeon against them.

What will the Wisconsin turnout turn out to be? [OK, I have to apologize for that, but it certainly does roll off the tongue, n'est-ce pas? Ahem.] The whole reason Republicans are forcing Wisconsin voters to risk death to vote is that they think it'll depress Democratic turnout and thus give them an upper hand in a state supreme court race. If there is still justice in the world, a flood of Democrats will brave the dangers and the Republicans' macabre partisanship will miserably fail, as their own voters turn out to be the ones who stay home, but we'll have to wait and see. Additionally, if Democratic turnout is higher than expected while GOP turnout is lower, it will give Republicans in other states something to think about if they decide to try similar hardball tactics.

The last primary prediction column I wrote was titled "Final Tuesday Predictions?" since I truly believed that no more would be necessary. I closed this column by predicting:

I'm going to end by making the meta-prediction that this will be the final one of these columns for the 2020 presidential primary season. If Bernie soldiers on after tonight, then I'll play along and continue to call the races as they happen.

Which is where we find ourselves now, since that prediction obviously turned out to be wrong. The longer Bernie hangs on, the better my overall score is going to be in the end, because the primaries are getting rather easy to predict (since the safe bet is now always that Biden wins). But as long as he decides to keep going, I'll continue to write these columns. The result is now pretty close to a foregone conclusion, but until Bernie throws in the towel, we'll continue to go through the motions for as long as it takes.

63 Comments on “On Wisconsin”

[1]

Elizabeth Miller wrote:

Chris, what could Senator Sanders be thinking about staying in as long as he can? It seems to me that he lost his chance to come out of this in any sort of positive way a long time ago … seems like a virtual lifetime ago.

I agree, the campaign ads almost write themselves. Trump's daily COVID-19 briefings are well and truly infomercials for Chloroquine - "don't wait try it now, it might work!" Turns out that Trump has rather cozy ties with this pharma-pseudocal industry...lavish campaign contributions and personal investments by Trump and his cronies. An honest man might have mentioned that. It's in the NY Times and is going viral if you will pardon the expression.

Seriously:If Democrats can't work with this unforced error - what can they work with?

"Some “shoots of success” indicate social distancing guidelines and stay-at-home orders have begun to flatten the curve of COVID-19 infections in the U.S., according to White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx, but Americans need to remain vigilant.

“We are beginning to see some flattening of the number of new cases per day in specific metro areas,” Birx said Wednesday on “CBS This Morning.” She also praised “early shoots of success” in Washington and California, two states that swiftly took action to mitigate the spread of the pandemic.

In another interview Wednesday on NBC’s “Today,” Birx said the curve has been “persistently flat” in Washington and California.

In New York and New Jersey, the number of cases initially rose much more sharply, but “we’re seeing that stabilizing, and that gives us great encouragement,” Birx said."

He has tested negative, his doc thinks he's got pneumonia (not COVID-19), but he's not exactly enjoying life. He likened what coughing is like to that scene from Alien where the monster bursts out of the chest (which is pretty true to form for him, citing sci-fi movies in times of trouble).

He was feisty enough to blame everything on the Democrats and impeachment, though, so perhaps he's getting better. Heh.

Just wanted to share this with everyone who expressed concern for him. He'll probably be back to annoy us all real soon.

I listened to the daily briefing at the WHO today and most of the questions were directed to Dr. Tedros, the Director General of the WHO and concerned the remarks made by president Trump yesterday disparaging the WHO and its response to the coronavirus outbreak.

The words of the DG were quite inspirational and I don't imagine Trump would understand one word of it. Which, I hasten to add, doesn't bode well for the US or for the rest of us out in the world …

He has tested negative, his doc thinks he's got pneumonia (not COVID-19), but he's not exactly enjoying life.

We are starting to believe that it is possible that COVID-19 is similar to the HIV virus in that a person can be infected with it despite testing negative for the virus. Chris, if Michale has not been tested for the anti-bodies for COVID-19, he really might want to request it be run.

With HIV, it is possible for a healthy person to become infected, but their viral count is so low that the virus is undetectable. They still have HIV, but in such small amounts that it is possible for them to live their whole life without ever showing signs or symptoms of the virus. They may be asymptomatic, but they are still capable of spreading the disease to others.

COVID-19 has shown itself to be very similar to HIV in multiple ways.

- People can show no symptoms but they still can spread the virus.

- Even if a person is showing signs of having the virus, it often takes multiple tests before they test positive.

- A person who had tested positive can seem to get over the virus — go back to having a viral count so low that it undetectable— but then the virus comes back. This is not because they were re-infected, but from the dormant virus coming back.

The COVID-19 virus has shown all of these same traits. I do not know how long the virus can remain undetectable, but it really seems like hospitals need to be running multiple tests to check for the COVID-19 virus — which sucks since they haven’t been able to get access to enough of even one of the tests in most places.

But, asymptomatic transmission of this new coronavirus is not the driver of this epidemic and pandemic, based on current knowledge of how this virus operates.

What we know is based on the very limited data that we have been able to collect thus far; so it is very likely — given what we know that we do NOT know — HOW this pandemic is being “driven” is still not fully understood.

With lack of testing, we just do not know how many people are dying from this disease. In NYC, they are seeing an average of 200 to 250 deaths each day that are not being tied to the coronavirus. That’s up from 20 to 25 deaths/per day a year ago. We have a massive increase of deaths that just happen to coincide with this epidemic, but that we have not tested to determine if they are related. It is hard to think that these increases in deaths — which multiple cities have reported — compared to past years are just a fluke.

EM: But, asymptomatic transmission of this new coronavirus is not the driver of this epidemic and pandemic, based on current knowledge of how this virus operates.

Russ: What we know is based on the very limited data that we have been able to collect thus far; so it is very likely — given what we know that we do NOT know — HOW this pandemic is being “driven” is still not fully understood.

Most people who test positive for the coronavirus actually do go on to develop some syptoms; however, some develop such minor symptoms that it's not unlike their usual allergy symptoms and so it goes undetected as the disease, and -- as we all know so well -- they're not adequately testing!

Now to throw in yet another word they're using to distinguish those "asymptomatic" carriers who spread the disease without ever showing discernible symptoms, they've also discovered there is significant viral shedding by "presymptomatic" carriers around 48 hours before they go on to develop symptoms. These infected carriers are not sick yet but are infecting people before they show a single symptom but days later become symptomatic.

"With lack of testing, we just do not know how many people are dying from this disease."

Testing is not the only problem. You cannot meaningfully estimate mortality unless you work with closed cases = the patient has either died or recovered (to some standard). I have yet to find a compartmentalized statistical breakdown of the disease progression. Something along these lines:

Sick at home: recover or die at home or

----Hospitalized: recover, die in hospital or

-------Intensive Care Unit: recover or die in ICU

(I've left out some recursions in this model due to the limitations of working in a skinny column of text.)

It takes a very long time to go through all the wickets. There are currently about 430,000
confirmed cases in the pipeline of disease progression. There are only 39,000 closed cases to date. Of these about 15,000 have died while 24,000 meet the definition of "recovered" * That works out to an averaged mortality of 38%. That is pretty damn high!...Is that going to hold up for the remaining approximately 400,000 still in the pipeline? Yet again, we don't seem to know.

The US death rate seems very high compared to the 2% reported by China. I am suspicious about the Chinese estimate. It is fudge numbers when you lack an independent press. On the other hand , South Korea estimates fatalities at about 3%, and SK is relatively open society.

* From what I've seen "recovered" seems to include discharge to a rehab facility.

There are lots of studies looking at this and some show that 6% of cases may have been caused by people who were presymptomatic, as the WHO's Dr. Ryan said the other day. He went on to say that there are a lot of estimates out there like that but the corollary is that 94% of cases are caused by symptomatic transmission. That is what we know today.

Dr. Ryan continued to explain that 'there is always the possibility of asymptomatic transmission. There is always the possibility that we can have some element of airborne transmission. But what we have to look at is what is the main driver of this pandemic. And, in this case we still believe that the main driver of this pandemic is symptomatic individuals coughing or sneezing or contaminating surfaces or contaminating other individuals."

"Breaking that chain means ensuring that infected individuals are diagnosed and isolated, their contacts are traced and tracked and quarantined and that people are cared for very quickly in the system."

Of course, this understanding of transmission could change because we are dealing with a new coronavirus and the first coronavirus to cause a pandemic.

And, this was said in the context of whether masks should be worn by the public. But, that's another discussion.

The US death rate seems very high compared to the 2% reported by China. I am suspicious about the Chinese estimate. It is fudge numbers when you lack an independent press. On the other hand , South Korea estimates fatalities at about 3%, and SK is relatively open society.

Actually, YOUR death rate for the US is very high. It's much higher than China due to your extremely misleading, bordering on the outright false, methodology.

On Wisconsin, it seems that new legislation is needed to protect the health of people as they come out to polling stations to vote during a pandemic.

One might be excused for thinking that legislation to protect the health of voters wouldn't be required but considered a no-brainer - by anyone, regardless of their party affiliation or no affiliation.

Are your criticisms based on any knowledge of and/or formal training in population biology? Math modeling in general? Basic statistics? I have a PhD in the field...the parchment saying so is hanging on my wall. I've worked micro organisms and I've worked macro organisms. Life cycles in hours, life cycles in years. The math and stats don't care about the size of the organism, just about its life style.

I have described the model I'm using. It's not mine, it's very standard. What part don't you like? Be specific. I have detailed what is wrong with many mass media COVID-19 fatality estimates - they haven't given the population enough time to get sick enough to die or recover. This is analogous to putting your thumb under a scale.

I am not saying the fatality rate is constant. All that talk about flattening the curve...by flattening the curve you hope to reduce mortality. I hope like hell it works, and the curve IS flatter than it was, but logistic limitations in the US health care system may ultimately outrun flattening. We are not out the woods. The doubling time of reported new cases has been declining for 2 weeks now. That is great news....but the ratio of survivors:victims in closed cases has not changed much and is actually a bit higher than it was 2 weeks ago.

Fauci just announced new forecasts that lower the projected deaths to 60,0000 rather than earlier projections of 100,000 to 200,000. No details, such as a confidence interval, were given - and forecasts are always dicey when it comes to exponential growth. What comes up can come down and vice versa.

Case in point: On March 27th, when the total US deaths was a bit over 3000, I projected 50,000 US deaths by Easter Sunday. The doubling time of known deaths was about 3 days back then, but it has been getting consistently longer since. A card laid is a card played. It looks like the Easter day total will be closer to 20,000. Sometimes it's nice to be wrong. Still that amounts to 17,000 more fatalities in just 2 weeks. Do you think the pews will be filled as ol' Raccoon eyes predicted?

One other thing. I am not bashing WHO. It's a big organization, with a public relations wing and a science wing. Public statements coming out have not been subjected to formal peer review. That takes months....even when everybody isn't too busy with a pandemic to bother with peer review. In the moment, the boss says something off the cuff, and his/her subordinate tries not to roll their eyes. Everybody seems to like bashing WHO, but it does some very good work in some very poor countries.

Why do I bother doing this. It's something my father (an engineer) said to me when I was little kid - if you want to understand how something works, take it apart and play with it. Math modeling is a way doing that.

I thought this: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/coronavirus is an interesting look beyond the pure numbers. Per capita, the tiny countries are really getting hit hard. Or are they just not testing to the levels of other countries?

I agree the 38% death rate is in the lies, dam lies and statistics category. Ya, you can make the math work out that way but only by ignoring a huge amount of data both existing and specifically missing. The 38% (and much of the data that the published death rates show) is that that there is a quite high death rate for those that are both infected and need hospital care and are in a bad enough state to get a rationed test. But without knowing actual general populaces infection rate, how many of those are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms, those death numbers are purely for a specific population. I think this next week should get better data. There is a bunch of random testing going on in a few cities of the Bay Area. They should have at least a preliminary report next week, or shortly thereafter...

"This helps explain how rapidly this virus continues to spread across the country, because we have asymptomatic transmitters and we have individuals who are transmitting 48 hours before they become symptomatic," he added.

Well, I think we have to look at asymptomatic or presymptomatic versus symptomatic shedding of virus in terms of transmission and viral dose when we talk about what is the driver of this pandemic.

Regardless of whether positive cases are caused by symptomatic or asymptomatic people, the virus is still spread through droplets from coughing, sneezing and talking or by contaminated surfaces followed by touching your face, nose or mouth.

What is the comparative dose of virus that infected people are exposed to and how does it depend on whether exposure was by asymptomatic or symptomatic people? I guess that, among many other things, are now being studied.

All I am saying is that based on all of the evidence so far, the WHO is still saying that the driver of this pandemic is symptomatic transmission.

I think there's been some miscommunication here. My read of what ts initially wrote is that the current data set is essentially useless. What it shows is that of the people who get so sick they're almost dying, 38% die.

I'm personally very fond of "lies, damn lies and statistics" ...it's one of the best things Twain probably never really said. I know the death-to-case ratio method that I use (that's what the CDC calls it) is a bit counter intuitive, but let explain why I think it much more informative than a simple deaths/diagnosed cases statistic.

The question that interests me is "If I come down with a case if COVID-19, what are my chances of getting out alive. The only people who give me concrete information (and it's not perfect) are the people who have already taken the test, and have either passed (released from hospital or ICU) or failed (died). All those infected patients still taking the test give me some hints, but they have neither passed or failed. The hints they do give me are all based on comparing their progress to people who have already passed or failed the test. In other words, those in the pipeline offer no additional information. So, leave them out of denominator...until they pass or fail the test. Leaving them in the denominator tacitly assumes they will all survive. Leaving them in biases the test towards low end fatality, especially early on in an epidemic...when those taking the test greatly outnumber those who have passed or failed. The bias is especially acute early on in an outbreak. There is no bias on the last day - so historians catch a break.

But you seem to be taking an intentionally fatalistic approach. The only fairly complete data we have are the cruise ships where everyone was tested. They have been showing a death rate of around .5% last I read. But keep in mind that though I have not seen complete demographics of the ships, I would think the average cruise ship passenger would already be fairly high risk. Age, existing conditions and according to France’s chief epidemiologist, obesity all increase the likelihood of death. I strongly suspect this virus is much, much more virulent and less deadly than the numbers show. If you are old, fat, have diabetes and/or lung problems of some sort, then you definitely should be fearing for your life. If you are younger and in good health, your chances are pretty good of not only surviving the virus but getting fairly mild symptoms. Unlike the Spanish Flu, this one is hell bent on culling the weak.

If I were to guess the final numbers after this is all over, I would put it somewhere around .07% to .3% death rate...

Yes, I am deliberately taking an intentionally fatalistic approach! Why is that strange during a pandemic?

I want to know how likely I am to die or survive if I contract the disease. Based on my age demographic (available from the Social Security web site), I normally have about a 2% chance of dying each year under normal circumstances. How much would catching the virus increase my chances of dying this year? If it's extreme I'm willing to take stringent measures to avoid infection, if it's small I dial down my response. I pass anything I learn to friends and family.

The only way I can objectively estimate my odds is to examine what has happened to the poor souls who have already caught the disease and have either died or survived the experience. That is the acid test as far as I'm concerned. Some of you disagree, it's your choice. As of this morning there are about 40,000 Americans who have taken the test:about 35% have died, and the remainder have defeated the virus. Another 400 K are known to be infected, but their fate is still an open book-we do not who will live and who will die in this group, but I am pretty confident it will be about the same percentage we see now. If the data changes, I will modify my approach. I will note that mortality percentages of closed cases have not changed much since the earliest days of the US outbreak. That suggests the mortality:survival ratio is pretty stable. All you can do is track the trend and decide what you want to do as things change. Good luck all. Be wary of happy talk - especially politicians running for office.

A 35% fatality risk is pretty dramatic in my book. According to the good people at Social Security, it's like being 103 years old. My response has been pretty extreme. I haven't gone to the grocery in a month. I try to eat mostly canned or frozen food. My trip to the pharmacy yesterday was the first time I've driven my car in a month. I wore a mask and latex gloves inside the pharmacy. There was huge line at the outside pharmacy pick-up window, the store was practically empty. Showered when I got home and washed my clothes. Groceries in the garage for three days.

I still run every day, but not with my club, I go solo and so does the rest of the club-so far as I know. You cannot run any significant distance in a mask. I visit with my brother in the driveway every week or so, lawn chairs 6' apart, masks except when we drink some beer. The masks are mostly for show - encourage the neighbors. All other friends and family - online video contact only. My son is a park ranger so he is pretty isolated out the boondocks. Most other family is in NY city and NJ. None have gotten sick. I have actually done a lot of useful things around the house and garden. I wouldn't recommend the life style, but it's tolerable.

I haven't looked at the cruise ship data. It is a small sample compared to what is available on the internet from Federal and State sources.

On other thing deserves mention. I am not an especially risk averse person. I am not as risk prone as I was when younger - I don't drive motorcycles or jump out of perfectly good airplanes anymore, but I still lead a fairly adventurous life for somebody my age. This epidemic has gotten my attention.

35% is scary. It's almost ebola levels and if Coronavirus was that deadly, it would have burned it's self out even with a long incubation period. There would also be satellite images of mass graves in China. You seem to be playing mental gymnastics with extremely limited data in order to scare yourself, while ignoring everything outside numbers on a page, especially the science of the subject at hand to which you allege a knowledge of. Pretty piss-poor risk assessment in my opinion.

Check the Greenland numbers: how do you explain them with a 35% death rate?

I haven't looked at the cruise ship data. It is a small sample compared to what is available on the internet from Federal and State sources.

You should. As it's the ONLY complete data out there at this time.

The Only Thing We Have to Fear is Fear Itself.
-Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Regardless of whether positive cases are caused by symptomatic or asymptomatic people, the virus is still spread through droplets from coughing, sneezing and talking or by contaminated surfaces followed by touching your face, nose or mouth.

Pretty basic transmission.

All I am saying is that based on all of the evidence so far, the WHO is still saying that the driver of this pandemic is symptomatic transmission.

This pandemic is being driven by symptomatic transmission, according to epidemiology experts, including the World Health Organization.

WHO experts pour over the research, paper by paper, researcher by researcher, 24/7.

Until they have evidence to prove otherwise, WHO still believes, based on all available evidence, that this pandemic is being driven by symptomatic transmission. Which means that most infections are caused by droplets containing the virus being transferred from an infected individual to another individual through coughing and sneezing and talking.

It's solid science. I can't find fault with anything in it. However it is a different population than the US - and the US states, and quite possibly a different strain of the virus.

Disease resistant human populations are well documented, as are mild strains of viruses.

I'm in Ohio, there are only about 200 closed cases and about 5200 active ones. Most of the closed cases are fatal at this time. The State of Ohio responded fairly quickly and this seems to be helping a lot. The public is pretty good about adhering to social distancing-at least in my town. Lots of bandana filters - the real deal are long gone. The Governor has set up a program to sterilize and recycle used masks-up to 30 times if memory serves. The grocery stores were cleared out very quickly-not just TP but almost everything.

But you understand that the importance of the cruise ship is everybody got tested in order to get off the ship, Passengers and crew alike?

How many Ohioans have been tested at this point? Most recent number I could find: 55,000 out of a population of 11 million. Do you actually believe there are only 5500 cases currently in Ohio? I would expect there to be at least an order of magnitude more and possibly up to 2.

The other problem with your numbers are recovered = tested negative after testing positive. Not ending of symptoms. Someone who has "recovered" from a symptom perspective might still test positive for a week or more afterword. They are not on their death bed still on the brink of meeting their maker until they suddenly pop up cured and test negative.

I would think both these factors would radically change your models if you were looking for accuracy over fatalism...

Ohio is still under-tested. It's been on the evening news, I can't recall the exact numbers.

"Do you actually believe there are only 5500 cases currently in Ohio?"

Cases are a human construct. So yes, I can believe it. I think there are an awful lot more than 5500 people who have been infected with COVID-19 but they have immune systems that can cope with it. They do not show up in the stats, either because they are asymptomatic or only show mild symptoms that don't flag as COVID-19. This what ultimately stops an epidemic-antibodies are generated in enough of the population causing the pathogen to run out targets, or alternatively to just infect benignly and cause no overt problems to most people. COVID-19 happens to have an unusually strong (but not unprecedented) opening game. If you are one of those with a weak immune system (with respect to COVID) you are more likely than most to progress from hospital to ICU to morgue. It is killing a lot people who are perfectly healthy otherwise. That's just the way epidemics work. I don't know my immunity status....and don't want to find out by ending up in the hospital. Tests would be nice, it could have happened, but the ball somebody dropped. It is all about spending money on something that may not happen.

*laughs* Once again I find myself telling Elizabeth Miller: Get over yourself.

This pandemic is being driven by symptomatic transmission, according to epidemiology experts, including the World Health Organization.

It's clearly being "driven by" multiple factors although obviously not in equal degrees if you want to keep arguing semantics over and over, but make no mistake there is evidence that it's being driven by asymptomatic, pre-symptomatic, as well as symptomatic transmission... every one of them apply.

WHO experts pour over the research, paper by paper, researcher by researcher, 24/7.

but make no mistake there is evidence that it's being driven by asymptomatic, pre-symptomatic, as well as symptomatic transmission... every one of them apply.

Yes, there may be some element of airborne or pre-symptomatic transmission but this is not the driving force of the epidemic.

Apparently [the WHO] missed some research.

Well, they didn't miss the research you cite from Singapore. The WHO's Dr. Michael Ryan talked about this research out of Singapore that says 6% of the cases reported were asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic at one of the WHO daily press briefings on COVID-19.

Here is what Dr. Ryan said about the Singapore research:

"There are many articles coming out at the moment on types of transmission and pre-symptomatic transmission. I've seen one recently from I think Singapore where there was an estimation that about 6% of cases may have been caused by people who were pre-symptomatic. I'm not here to question that - there are many different estimates. But the corollary of that, the opposite of that is clearly that 94% of infections are caused by people who ARE symptomatic.

"So we have to look at what's driving this epidemic. There is always the possibility of asymptomatic transmission. There is always the possibility that we can have some element of airborne transmission. But what we have to look at is what is the main driver of this pandemic. And, in this case we still believe that the main driver of this pandemic is symptomatic individuals coughing or sneezing or contaminating surfaces or contaminating other individuals. Breaking that chain means ensuring that infected individuals are diagnosed and isolated, their contacts are traced and tracked and quarantined and that people are cared for very quickly in the system."

Maybe the WHO will get with the program and catch up.

No, Kick, the WHO is the premier organization fighting this pandemic and they are, in fact, poring over ALL of the research. It is well worth the time to take a look at their daily coronavirus briefings.

Yes, there may be some element of airborne or pre-symptomatic transmission but this is not the driving force of the epidemic.

I see you're making progress with the fact that all the elements of transmission of the disease are "driving forces." Good for you. It doesn't matter what degree to which they drive the disease, they are each a "driving force."

Well, they didn't miss the research you cite from Singapore. The WHO's Dr. Michael Ryan talked about this research out of Singapore that says 6% of the cases reported were asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic at one of the WHO daily press briefings on COVID-19.

So Dr. Ryan is admitting they are driving forces. Great. Then I cannot fathom why you keep taking issue when I say they are each driving forces that transmit the disease.

Here is what Dr. Ryan said about the Singapore research:

"There are many articles coming out at the moment on types of transmission and pre-symptomatic transmission. I've seen one recently from I think Singapore where there was an estimation that about 6% of cases may have been caused by people who were pre-symptomatic. I'm not here to question that - there are many different estimates. But the corollary of that, the opposite of that is clearly that 94% of infections are caused by people who ARE symptomatic.

"So we have to look at what's driving this epidemic. There is always the possibility of asymptomatic transmission. There is always the possibility that we can have some element of airborne transmission. But what we have to look at is what is the main driver of this pandemic. And, in this case we still believe that the main driver of this pandemic is symptomatic individuals coughing or sneezing or contaminating surfaces or contaminating other individuals. Breaking that chain means ensuring that infected individuals are diagnosed and isolated, their contacts are traced and tracked and quarantined and that people are cared for very quickly in the system."

So you see there that Dr. Ryan characterized symptomatic transmission as the "main driver" of the virus.

So to recap:

All I am saying is that based on all of the evidence so far, the WHO is still saying that the driver of this pandemic is symptomatic transmission. ~ Elizabeth Miller

Actually, as your quote from Dr. Ryan makes clear, what he said was "symptomatic transmission" is the main driver of the disease. The other modes of transmission I listed are still drivers of the disease... I never claimed they were the main drivers... simply listed all the drivers of the virus... whereupon you took issue with two of them as somehow not drivers.